New DCS:Ka-50 and FC2.0 sound engine

It's quite awesome if you have a good soundsystem :D

And no old bugs, only brand new ones ;)

Somehow my mind wandered to that infomercial scene in the Starship Troopers movie where the mother is extatic as the kids are hopping around squashing bugs. :D

So? :) If the sound is delayed by the proper amount, the source will nonetheless have passed you before the wavefront hits you.

Theoreticaly but I account for software development nature - anything can brake anything. At least that's what devs are saying when something gets broken ;)

I assume you are not in possession of a proper recording audio interface? :music_whistling:

 

Does your sound card support any realtime filtering?

You tell me :D I have Asus Xonar DS.

You will get Doppler shift, Mach cone, sound propagation delay, attenuation of high frequencies (and volume) by distance, low-pass filtering of world sounds in the cockpit.

I'm surprised again. Thank you for the info.

It's good to hear that the second biggest immersion killer (sound glitches) has been eliminated. The biggest one is the Mi-8 3D model :tomato:

Hi Hajduk,

 

The new engine does indeed squash that particularely annoying issue with Vista/Win7.

I beg my pardon, but proper audio interfaces do not support anything besides audio I/O.

Well, yes you are right, unless it's a pci/pcie solution. E.g. my EMU card can run quite some stuff on it's hardware in realtime.

Somehow my mind wandered to that infomercial scene in the Starship Troopers movie where the mother is extatic as the kids are hopping around squashing bugs. :D

I think that was the school-teacher, actually, as the kids were being indoctrinated in school that the only good bug was a dead one :)

Well, yes you are right, unless it's a pci/pcie solution. E.g. my EMU card can run quite some stuff on it's hardware in realtime.

So true.

I always wondered why people never ever would consider to play with an onboard-graphics chip, because they could only play with limited resolution and effects, but when it comes to sound they insist an onboard-chip of course is as good as a dedicated PCIe-SoundCard. :doh:

You tell me :D I have Asus Xonar DS.

Erm, all the info i found about that card tells me that it's not :(

I always wondered why people never ever would consider to play with an onboard-graphics chip, because they could only play with limited resolution and effects, but when it comes to sound they insist an onboard-chip of course is as good as a dedicated PCIe-SoundCard. :doh:

What you say is true, but we're talking features here that consumer audio cards don't have because the consumer usually doesn't need them :) (i'm sure that the hardware of modern high end cards would be quite capable to do some fancy stuff on their own in this regard, but it's the software they lack)

So true.

 

I always wondered why people never ever would consider to play with an onboard-graphics chip, because they could only play with limited resolution and effects, but when it comes to sound they insist an onboard-chip of course is as good as a dedicated PCIe-SoundCard. :doh:

Because sound and graphics are aeons from each other in complexity. A plugin graphics card will often make the difference between single-digit FPS or triple-digit FPS. Sound cards no longer have that effect, but what they used to do was to make the difference between the venerable PC Speaker and CD-quality audio. Nowadays, they don't make that difference. You can even mount a nice surround rig on an onboard sound chip.

So basically, a graphics card is a necessity if you are playing games. You just cannot play anything newer than StarCraft without it. Sounds cards are a luxury (though a relatively cheap one) where most people won't even notice a difference to their onboard, depending on their speaker setup.

So basically, a graphics card is a necessity if you are playing games. You just cannot play anything newer than StarCraft without it. Sounds cards are a luxury (though a relatively cheap one) where most people won't even notice a difference to their onboard, depending on their speaker setup.

Not necessarily true. The difference does not lie so much in the sound quality (even moderately cheap amplifiers and ad/da converters have SNR and THD values beyond anything the human ear is able to recognise nowadays, linearity might still be a factor though) but in surround rendering.

But that's not how it is, EtherealN.

Even SC2, BC2, Crysis, etc. run on onboard graphics-chipsets, as they also support DX10 and 11 and in combination with a good CPU and RAM, these games are even playable. I played World in Conflict, one of the first games with DX10-support on my Notebook, and that's not much more than a typewriter with some electronics and a monitor.

You have to lower the settings, though, to a level manageable by the graphics-chip, thus loosing visual quality.

It's the very same taking place when you run your sound via onboard-chip. It is stripped down to the basics, no surround, no filtering, no hardware-eax, no dedicated 5.1 or 7.1 support, minimal signal output-strength,....

But the difference is, that people don't care, because they spend 500$ on a monitor, 500$ on a graphics-card and 10$ on a headset. And with such a thing, really, you don't notice any difference.

And here the circle comes complete: If you test PCIe-graphics- vs onboard-chip on a 600x800 pixel monitor, with 256colors and 50Hz, you won't notice much of a difference either. ;)

You will get Doppler shift, Mach cone, sound propagation delay, attenuation of high frequencies (and volume) by distance, low-pass filtering of world sounds in the cockpit.

And no old bugs, only brand new ones ;)

Are you serious? or sarcastic? :helpsmilie:

If this is true I reached heaven.....:pilotfly:

McDan out

It's the very same taking place when you run your sound via onboard-chip. It is stripped down to the basics, no surround, no filtering, no hardware-eax, no dedicated 5.1 or 7.1 support, minimal signal output-strength,....

Doesn't sound like my onboard-chip at all, which is my point. Onboard sound isn't a singular set of two five-watt satellites anymore. My specific audio chip gives me 7.1 surround, filtering and so on. Basically, considering that I currently use two satellites and a sub, even my onboard chip is overkill as far as "surround" goes.

Onboard graphics though... well, it doesn't even have that at all, so that's a moot point, but even there you have to remember that it depends a whole lot on which onboard chip it is. Some will actually play DCS:BS on low texture settings, some will not even boot it up. My netbook (running Intel) doesn't even have Dx10 support - though it is true that it can run more than one would expect after I overclocked it's GPU. :P

But the difference is, that people don't care, because they spend 500$ on a monitor, 500$ on a graphics-card and 10$ on a headset. And with such a thing, really, you don't notice any difference.

Tsk tsk, you're not only generalizing the hardware up there, now you are generalizing the people. My own purchases were $200 monitor, $200 dollar graphics card, $100 dollar headset and $100 dollar speaker set. The sound is awesome.

...though when I plug either speaker or headset into my netbook, the sound sucks. Fact of the matter is this: there are many onboard soundcards that are actually overkill for a non-professional. You just need to get lucky with your motherboard selection. If my stationary computer had the same onboard sound as my netbook, you bet your behind I'd get an addin sound card. But it didn't have that. It has a very crisp 7.1 "onboard". ;)

I mean come on, soon you'll tell me it's "onboard graphics" with no comment when comparing an Intel GMA950 with a chip that has an integrated gForce 9600, labeling both as just "onboard graphics"? No? Then realize that it's the same thing with onboard audio.

It's called "exaggeration", not "generalizing" :smilewink:

I mean come on, soon you'll tell me it's "onboard graphics" with no comment when comparing an Intel GMA950 with a chip that has an integrated gForce 9600, labeling both as just "onboard graphics"? No? Then realize that it's the same thing with onboard audio.

Now, who's generalizing?

No doubt an Intel GMA950 is another dimension than an integrated gForce 9600.

But do you really want to tell me, that the integrated gForce 9600 with 265MB shared memory has negligible performance difference to a PCIe 9600 with 2.048 MB GDDR3-RAM? You really think only a professional user would mind the difference? Because THAT is actually your argumentation with onboard sound.

Okey, I'd add one reservation: excepting enthusiasts. Enthusiasts are something one basically has to treat the same as professionals hardware-wise.

But for the people the 9600's are intended for (like when I design a new computer for my sisters, mother etc) the difference there is indeed negligible for their purposes. For my purposes as an enthusiast the diff is not negligible.

What I'm trying to tell you is that for me, as an enthusiast, the difference between my onboard sound and addin sound cards is indeed negligible. The difference between my netbook's onboard sound and adding cards is not negligible. That's my point: you have been talking about "onboard sound" as a unit, and what I've been trying to point out to you is that they quite simply are not. See for example how you straight-out stated that onboard sound doesn't give you 7.1 surround etcetera - well, the point is that it DOES, if you have the right onboard chip. Some onboard sound chips barely qualify for the role of 80's Sony Walkman casette player, and some are overkill even for me who actually care about sound. So since the range is so massive, you simply cannot blankly state that "onboard sound" is nothing to go with.

It's exactly the same as addin cards for both graphics and sound: some are crap, some are awesome. It's just that with graphics the workload is several orders of magnitudes higher, wherefore that card is more important.

There's nothing magic about addin cards.

EDIT:

I'll add the point I made in PM here as well, for completeness:

I would be prepared to agree that quite a few onboards do suck, and unfortunately it is very hard to find out beforehand if the onboard you're getting with your mobo is anything you want to keep since they are allergic to giving a proper specification on them. So right now it really is a case of getting lucky with your purchase. For myself though, that basically means I'll buy a mobo, and if I am satisfied with the sound I'll keep it as-is, if I'm not I'll go shop for an addin.

Good point.

Surround output is in TODO, as well as HRTF (actually, I don't think flight sim needs pure HRFT, but some kind of directional filtering is definitely needed)

Hell yeah, i'm all ears :)

binaural audio would really be something

I agree that it is a personal opinion, a matter of taste and probably what you expect. And the advantage is not from 0 to 100 with just flipping in a card. I think we all agree on that.

What I also agree upon is that onboard-chips for home-users have 5.1, some even 7.1, but as on all of my statements, the question is HOW GOOD. I can drive around the world in a Trabbi, but if I had the choice, I would prefer an airplane.

I guess my opinion towards onboard-soundchips, no matter what quality and purpose, is a little preoccupied, as I had a soundcard for my PCs from the very start. In fact, even in times of Quake2 and UT99 I was even banned with my PC from Lanparties, because I could hear things others couldn't and on one LAN I even had to make a duel with a friend, my eyes shut and I still won!

In the 6 months I had to play without it, I felt like my ears were cut off.

I also tested 5.1 and 7.1 systems for a hardware reseller with and without amplifier, with onboard-sound, USB and PCI-soundcard. The winner was pretty obvious for all tests (Gaming, Musik and Cinema).

But again, IMHO this is about priorities.

My RME Multiface (sold) could not do anything besides I/O fancy routing (As all RME devices).

Well it does at least have a midi controllable mixer. The interfaces you mentioned are merely high quality analog to adat/spdif/firewire/usb/whatever. But there are solutions that are more integrated to the pc and can run more complex software.

The emu card i possess can run certain vst effects on it's hardware, and some other effects via its software mixer, which gives you a different set of options.

Apples and oranges :)

Yeah, and obviously it also depends on what other equipment one is prepared to purchase. I mean, if you buy a proper 7.1 cinema system that'll be a wholly different thing to just hooking up a couple satellites around your desk - and at that point you are spending so much money you "might as well".

Graphics equivalent would be that I actually selected a 1650 screen because it would place less demands on my videocard, meaning I could get good performance out of a cheaper one. It's one of the things that keep me from actually purchasing that 32'' I've been drooling over - at that resolution I would most likely have to replace my graphics card as well. (Drawback of losing the soft pixels of the old CRTs I guess.)

But if I had a better working space I might have invested in a more hardcore sound rig - it's just that I already have a cinema upstairs with projector and several thousand watts of speakers in surround configuration, so my computer is fairly irrelevant as far as sound quality in movies go.

So it ends up with differing priorities giving different pain thresholds, I guess.

For me, sound is a very important part of the integral experience and adds a lot in terms of suspension of disbelief.

I have a good voice and ear for music, too.

I have a good voice and ear for music, too.

I don't. There are mp3's floating about on the web with recordings of me on Ventrilo... >.<